


yet Man is not consum'd

by tortoiseshells



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: AU for 2x05, Anna's Feeling are Complicated, F/M, Hewlett Is Trying, In Which Richard Woodhull Earns His Nickname, Period Medicine Sure Is Fun, Quarantine, Smallpox, Variolation/Inoculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23321974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: AU for 2x05: Smallpox arrives on the tails of the Rangers, and much of Setauket scrambles for quarantine or for variolation. In the midst of this, Anna Strong finds herself erstwhile nurse to the denizens of Whitehall - an occupation that gives her time to reflect on the help Major Hewlett has offered her.
Relationships: Edmund Hewlett/Anna Strong, past Anna Strong/Selah Strong - Relationship
Comments: 13
Kudos: 15





	yet Man is not consum'd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fericita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fericita/gifts).



Selah Strong had been an odd admixture of caution and recklessness, Anna Strong had more than once had cause to reflect – but as he was gone with the Continentals, she hadn’t thought of it for some weeks. And yet, there was occasion now. Anna, dressing in the cold pre-dawn light, ran her fingers across the small variolation mark in her arm, recalling the quick pain of the blade and the diseased matter on a sliver, a quill – all done when the news of the smallpox lying heavily on Boston came in ’75, and Selah had made his case to her: _It will be pain now, but you will be safer, Anna_. Who, save the Lord above (if He were looking, which she doubted), could have seen these consequences?

Not her. It had been pain and worse, time she _resented_ for its suffocating stillness and isolation. In the pits of the fever and aching, she’d stared at the whitewashed ceiling and wondered – wickedly, yes, and maybe unjustly – wondered if this was another way for her too-serious husband to keep her away from Abraham. She’d never said it. Had he understood? Selah faced away from her during the worst of it. 

_Enough_ , she told herself, knotting off her stays with a sharp tug. Whatever had happened then, Selah was gone.

And the smallpox was here. 

How it had come was anyone’s guess – Robeson would swear to anyone that it was a traitor plot, but even after most loyal to the Patriot cause had left, there were ugly whispers – the first case had arrived on the heels of Simcoe’s surly Rangers. Setauket folks could do that arithmetic. Some had shut themselves up; others knocked down Doctor Wyllis’s door demanding aid. Mary Woodhull had listened gravely with young Thomas on her hip, before demanding that her family and all other residents at Whitehall submit to variolation. And Anna, hiding in Whitehall’s lee from Simcoe – Mary had turned her fine sharp eyes on her, weighing up whether “adulteress” or “immune” was her most important attribute for the coming weeks. Her previous brush with the disease won out. And here she was, now: Nurse Anna.

Mary, opaque as porcelain, fretfully sat up in bed and said she was not worrying about Thomas, who she had sent away to her family. She was not an easy patient. The initial illness occupied her mind, but worries came back with the onset of the pox rash and spiking fever, worries that the pain and fever did not distract her from, only seemed to magnify. _Have you word about Thomas? Have you word from Abraham?_

“No,” she said, for several mornings together, leaving a cool cloth against her brow, knowing that Mary would toss it off in her fitful drowsing.

Still, Mary was preferable to Magistrate Woodhull, who hated her as much as he hated weakness – and now, stuck with both for weeks, he was as venomous as a snake in the grass. Worse! – Anna knew well most serpents slunk away when approached. Richard was looking to be dissatisfied, spoiling for a fight, and, even as the fever and pox set in in earnest, always had his displeasure to hand. Some days, it was her father, but other days – other days, it was against her: grasping and treacherous, _no better than Salome_ …

Anna thundered out of the room after a provocation too many, unashamedly thinking that she’d cry no tears if he died from the pox, that she wished Selah had taken his damn caution to the Devil so she would have been bedridden and safe from Richard’s vicious words! She wanted – wanted to do _something_ – walk until her legs gave out, take a paddle to a rug, scream – anything to make being shut up in Whitehall bearable!

Naturally, that was how the Major found her.

“An – Mrs. Strong,” he said from the stairs.

“Major Hewlett.”

He hesitated a moment, with a fleeting, awkward smile. Evidently she was radiating her anger, or he saw her white-knuckled fists, for he coughed and passed his book between his hands, settling on a mild, “Will you join me for – ah –supper?”

She was in no temper for it, and had it in mind to refuse – but without Hewlett’s obvious regard, how would Abigail’s messages get through? When quarantine was over, how many other allies did she have against Simcoe? And a smaller, kinder consideration: there was something a little more human to the Major, having seen him fussing over his ‘reflecting telescope.’ She could make conversation for a quarter of an hour before pleading a head-ache, or concern for Mary (Lord knew Hewlett wouldn’t believe her if she claimed concern for the Magistrate, after what he no doubt overheard), and escape.

“Of course,” she said as coolly as possible, and descended the stair.

The food was on the table, and Hewlett helped her to her seat. 

“Wine?”

“No, thank you.”

Another pause. Anna waited for him to be seated before attacking her cold ham, little minding the sound of cutlery against porcelain.

“Mrs. Strong.” She looked up. Hewlett hadn’t touched his plate or his glass, but was frowning at the candlesticks. “I think that, perhaps – I shall not ask you _why_ , of course – Would you prefer that I sit with Richard?”

Major Hewlett’s expression indicated he very much _did_ want to know why – brow furrowed, head cocked – but there was that anxious half-smile again, and she would have stood much sterner trials to avoid listening to the Magistrate’s barbs. Who else was there to help her?

And more importantly, who _wanted_ to help her? No one with eyes could say his conduct towards her was disinterested, but he had _chosen_ to help her – in spite of what he knew of her. And, selfishly, she wanted help; she had grown into the partnership of marriage, however unevenly, and now found herself alone. Abe had Mary. Caleb and Ben had each other. Who and what did she have to help her in Setauket? She didn’t discount her faith in her cause, but ideas were ideas, and indifferent to the fate of those that held them.

“Mrs. Strong?” 

Evidently her attention had wandered longer than she’d thought. “Yes – thank you, Major.”

He tried to hide his smile in a sip of wine, but Anna saw the ruse for what it was. After a moment, smaller and more unsure, she returned the gesture.

“Good – good. That’s settled. I have had a letter from a friend – classmate, really – with entertaining news – went to see Mrs. Abington in _The School for Scandal_ , Sheridan not quite the Bard of Avon but still of interest to Richard … “

**Author's Note:**

> From Fericita's tumblr prompt: "How about Major Hewlett and Anna for a social distancing prompt? Quarantine or social?"
> 
> It's not an epidemic, exactly - but, as Anna reflects at the start, smallpox broke out in Boston under siege in '75, and was a major threat and concern during the American Revolution. I didn't find much about cases of smallpox in Long Island in the 1770s, so I hope I'm forgiven some artistic license. 
> 
> Variolation was the initial method of inoculation, which had been practiced in North America and England since at least the 1720s (and proved to be massively controversial in the 1721 Boston epidemic), usually involved deliberately infecting a healthy individual by inserting matter from a smallpox pustule into a cut made for the purpose. Riskier than the vaccine, the process had a 1% to 3% death rate - still, a major improvement on smallpox survival rates when contracted in an outbreak.
> 
> I tried to make this more romantic than it ended up being, but I hope you view Edmund's offering to wrangle a disagreeable Richard to be something akin to Captain Wentworth grabbing one of Anne's nephew's off her back when the boy wasn't listening to her.
> 
> Title from William Blake's "America: A Prophecy".


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